What hovers like a tiny  helicopter and flies backwards?

Has the flashy backside of a wasp … the huge eyes of a fly … … and spawns murderous maggots?

Meet the hoverflies, also known  as “flower flies,” or syrphids.

There are 6,000 species, each with its own style.

Bold stripes or plump fuzzy bodies make them  look like wasps or bees.

But it’s just a ruse.

This protective disguise tricks predators  into thinking they might get a face full of   stinger if they try to eat the hoverflies.

This bluff is called Batesian mimicry.

This one with the intricate pattern  on her back is an oblique streaktail.

Right now, she’s on a mission in this  Southern California flower patch, fueling   up on the pollen that will help her grow her eggs.

She loves this fragrant alyssum and pollinates it   as she darts from bloom to bloom.

See how precisely she lands?

Her wraparound eyes catch  the faintest motion … just   in time for her to escape this hungry crab spider.

After filling up on pollen, she  uses her stubby, but powerful,   antennae to smell for the perfect spot  for her eggs … an orange tree under   attack by these yellow insects with  curlicue poop: Asian citrus psyllids.

The hoverfly lays her eggs next  to them.

When maggots hatch out   of the eggs, they'll have plenty  of those psyllids nearby to eat.

Orange growers despise Asian citrus psyllids,  which spread a destructive bacterium.

Instead of these juicy beauties,  trees suffering from this “citrus   greening” make green, bitter  fruit … and eventually die.

So, scientist Nic Irvin, at  the University of California,   Riverside, has planted alyssum in orange  groves to attract oblique streaktails.

Their maggots hunt for  psyllids on the orange trees.

But the psyllids have a  security detail: Argentine ants.

They feed on the psyllids’ poop.

In exchange, the ants try  to keep the maggots away.

But this big one has the upper hand.

It digs its mouthparts in and injects some venom.

It even sucks out a little taste,   to see if it might want to eat the ant.

Nope.

It’s really after the psyllids.

Each maggot will devour more than 400  in the week before it turns into a pupa.

And that gluttony means  more oranges for you and me.

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